Lipika Kamra

Lipika Kamra was born in New Delhi/India in 1987, where she also grew up.

She currently resides in the United Kingdom, where she is a visiting lecturer in South Asian Politics at Queen Mary University of London. She is on leave from her position as Associate Professor in Politics and Anthropology at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat/India.

Kamra is a political anthropologist who studies the state, development, democracy and digital politics in India from an ethnographic perspective. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Critique of Anthropology, Antipode and Contemporary South Asia.

She also leads a project on WhatsApp and Politics with Philippa Williams. The project examines how the digital messaging app, WhatsApp, shapes everyday political life from family to political party and even the entire nation in India. The project is funded by the WhatsApp Misinformation and Social Science Research Award (awarded in 2018).

During the fellowship, she is due to complete a book manuscript focusing on counterinsurgency as a driver of statemaking at the margins of modern India. The book is based on her doctoral work, which was funded by a Felix Scholarship (2012–2016).